The Sidney Psalter


Book Description

Philip Sidney and his sister Mary translated the biblical psalms into some of the greatest lyric poems of the English Renaissance. This is the first complete edition for over forty years, providing the Psalms in an authoritative modernized text, with glosses and notes and an introduction setting the Psalms in their literary and cultural context.




Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature


Book Description

Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature examines the powerful influence of the biblical Psalms on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature. It explores the imaginative, beautiful, ingenious and sometimes ludicrous and improbable ways in which the Psalms were 'translated' from ancient Israel to Renaissance and Reformation England. No biblical book was more often or more diversely translated than the Psalms during the period. In church psalters, sophisticated metrical paraphrases, poetic adaptations, meditations, sermons, commentaries, and through biblical allusions in secular poems, plays, and prose fiction, English men and women interpreted the Psalms, refashioning them according to their own personal, religious, political, or aesthetic agendas. The book focuses on literature from major writers like Shakespeare and Milton to less prominent ones like George Gascoigne, Mary Sidney Herbert and George Wither, but it also explores the adaptations of the Psalms in musical settings, emblems, works of theology and political polemic.




Psalms in the Early Modern World


Book Description

Psalms in the Early Modern World is the first book to explore the use, interpretation, development, translation, and influence of the Psalms in the Atlantic world, 1400-1800. In the age of Reformation, when religious concerns drove political, social, cultural, economic, and scientific discourse, the Bible was the supreme document, and the Psalms were arguably its most important book.The Psalms played a central role in arbitrating the salient debates of the day, including but scarcely limited to the nature of power and the legitimacy of rule; the proper role and purpose of nations; the justification for holy war and the godliness of peace; and the relationship of individual and community to God. Contributors to the collection follow these debates around the Atlantic world, to pre- and post-Hispanic translators in Latin America, colonists in New England, mystics in Spain, the French court during the religious wars, and both Protestants and Catholics in England. Psalms in the Early Modern World showcases essays by scholars from literature, history, music, and religious studies, all of whom have expertise in the use and influence of Psalms in the early modern world. The collection reaches beyond national and confessional boundaries and to look at the ways in which Psalms touched nearly every person living in early modern Europe and any place in the world that Europeans took their cultural practices.




A Companion to Renaissance Poetry


Book Description

The most comprehensive collection of essays on Renaissance poetry on the market Covering the period 1520–1680, A Companion to Renaissance Poetry offers 46 essays which present an in-depth account of the context, production, and interpretation of early modern British poetry. It provides students with a deep appreciation for, and sensitivity toward, the ways in which poets of the period understood and fashioned a distinctly vernacular voice, while engaging them with some of the debates and departures that are currently animating the discipline. A Companion to Renaissance Poetry analyzes the historical, cultural, political, and religious background of the time, addressing issues such as education, translation, the Reformation, theorizations of poetry, and more. The book immerses readers in non-dramatic poetry from Wyatt to Milton, focusing on the key poetic genres—epic, lyric, complaint, elegy, epistle, pastoral, satire, and religious poetry. It also offers an inclusive account of the poetic production of the period by canonical and less canonical writers, female and male. Finally, it offers examples of current developments in the interpretation of Renaissance poetry, including economic, ecological, scientific, materialist, and formalist approaches. • Covers a wide selection of authors and texts • Features contributions from notable authors, scholars, and critics across the globe • Offers a substantial section on recent and developing approaches to reading Renaissance poetry A Companion to Renaissance Poetry is an ideal resource for all students and scholars of the literature and culture of the Renaissance period.




Renaissance Women Poets


Book Description

Whitney's two volumes of verse miscellany, 'Sweet Nosegay' (1573) and 'The Copy of a Letter' (1567), were part of a literary trend of combining classical and Biblical references with popular and vernacular sources, and reflect the growing literary appetites of the urban population. As well a selection of her original poetry, this volume includes Sidney's version of the Psalms of David and Petrach's 'Triumph of Death'. Lanyer's poetry is devotional and is the most single-minded and explicit inits advocacy of female spirituality and virtue. Included here are 'Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum' and 'The Description of Cooke-ham'.




Preaching Christ from Psalms


Book Description

In this final volume of his series on preaching Christ from the Old Testament, Sidney Greidanus offers expert guidance for busy pastors on preaching Christ from Psalms. Beginning with a general introduction on how pastors can interpret and preach from the biblical psalms -- and why they should -- Greidanus proceeds by discussing twenty-two psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A, supplying the building blocks necessary to preach from Psalms at Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and other major days and seasons of the church year. In addition to laying out basic homiletical-theological approaches suitable for each selected psalm, these chapters also provide verse-by-verse exposition, bridges to Christ in the New Testament, and ideas for placing the psalmist's words into contemporary context.




The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms


Book Description

An indispensable resource for students and scholars, The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms features a diverse array of essays that treat the Psalms from a variety of perspectives. Classical scholarship and approaches as well as contextual interpretations and practices are well represented. The coverage is uniquely wide ranging.




Open and Unafraid


Book Description

"A book you will want to read and read again." -- Eugene Peterson Afterword by Bono. How can you find a more transparent, resilient, and fearless life of faith? Open and Unafraid by David Taylor takes readers on a profound journey through the book of Psalms, which has been a central pillar for God's people for millennia, across all walks of life and cultural contexts. In reading it, we discover that we are never alone in our joys, sorrows, angers, doubts, praises, or thanksgivings. In it, we learn about prayer and poetry, honesty and community, justice and enemies, life and death, nations and creation. As a professor, pastor, author, and producer of the short film Bono and Eugene Peterson: The Psalms, David Taylor has created an accessible guide to the psalms that resonates deeply with first-time and long-time Bible readers, poets and artists, devout believers and spiritual seekers alike. Open and Unafraid shows you how to read the psalms in a fresh, life-giving way, and so access the bottomless resources for life and experience the presence of God--in order to deepen discipleship and worship. Endorsements: "David Taylor’s take is 'open and unafraid' alright. He really goes there, exposing himself before God in the most beautiful way. He might have called the book Naked, because if you don’t find your own self feeling a little exposed here, it might be time to take some armor off." -- Bono, from the Afterword "A book that you will want to read and read again, and yet again, in order to discover the wisdom of the Psalms that shows us how to walk in the life-giving way of Jesus." -- Eugene Peterson, from the Foreword "A winsome, accessible entry into the Book of Psalms…Connects the poetry of the psalms to real-life wonders and struggles." -- Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary "Taylor reads these biblical prayers with Dr. Seuss, rappers, and other poets, along with theologians and the daily news....Guides readers in tracing out patterns of holy speech that have the potential for healing our hearts and our communities." -- Ellen F. Davis, Duke Divinity School "I have always loved the psalms--for their defiant devotion, their deep joy, and their brutal yet beautiful honesty. And after reading this fantastic book about them, I love them even more." -- Matt Redman, worship leader and song writer "In these fraught and fearsome days, we need the psalms more than ever. And we need more faithful artists and thinkers like David Taylor to mine the infinite gifts the psalms offer across the ages." -- Karen Swallow Prior, author of Fierce Convictions




Defence of Poetry


Book Description




English Women, Religion, and Textual Production, 1500–1625


Book Description

Contributing to the growing interest in early modern women and religion, this essay collection advances scholarship by introducing readers to recently recovered or little-studied texts and by offering new paradigms for the analysis of women's religious literary activities. Contributors underscore the fact that women had complex, multi-dimensional relationships to the religio-political order, acting as activists for specific causes but also departing from confessional norms in creative ways and engaging in intra-as well as extra-confessional conflict. The volume thus includes essays that reflect on the complex dynamics of religious culture itself and that illuminate the importance of women's engagement with Catholicism throughout the period. The collection also highlights the vitality of neglected intertextual genres such as prayers, meditations, and translations, and it focuses attention on diverse forms of textual production such as literary writing, patronage, epistolary exchanges, public reading, and epitaphs. Collectively, English Women, Religion, and Textual Production, 1500-1625 offers a comprehensive treatment of the historical, literary, and methodological issues preoccupying scholars of women and religious writing.